


What's the Point?

by cowlicklesschick



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-01
Updated: 2016-03-01
Packaged: 2018-05-24 04:33:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6141610
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cowlicklesschick/pseuds/cowlicklesschick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Written a while back for a prompt from lariren-shadow on tumblr: Zutara Mai approves</p><p>This may or may not have morphed from “Zutara and Mai approves” to “Background Zutara and Mai-becomes-a-strong-independent-queen-who-don’t-need-no-Fire-Lord-to-have-a-decent-character-arc”.</p><p>I am absolutely not sorry. Like, at all.</p></blockquote>





	What's the Point?

Mai is good at a lot of things. Sighing, armed combat, court politics, and avoiding her mother to name a few.

But recently, she’s discovered a previously unknown talent of hers, and she’s not entirely sure that it’s a practical skill. Especially in this strange, new world that she finds waiting outside her cell at the Boiling Rock, where suddenly drilling giant holes through city walls isn’t _an act of war_ , it’s _an international incident_ and betraying Azula gets you an official pardon instead of a death sentence.

So, yeah, everything’s gone pretty much haywire from everything she’s ever known, and in her heart of hearts she knows that it’s a good thing, but the goodness of it doesn’t take away from the strangeness. She’s trying to keep her head from spinning when she arrives in Caldera and walks in the palace. Having practically grown up here, she waves away the servant and lets her feet take her to the private chambers she remembers from dinner parties and games of hide-and-seek (Azula always won).

The sunlight is pouring in, making square puddles of gold on the marble floors, making polished wood glisten and making those blue eyes only bluer. Which, that doesn’t even make _sense_ , how something that’s opposite to her element only seems to make her look stronger, deeper, to the point where the waterbender is glowing almost more than Zuko is.

And, _oh_ , how he’s glowing.

There are shadows under his eyes, there are bandages around his ribs, there are small, kind brown hands on either side of his face, and the shadows and the bandages suddenly seem unimportant when she sees the look in his eyes.

If the waterbender looks better in sunlight, it is _nothing_ compared to Zuko.

For a moment Mai genuinely wonders if they even needed the sun anymore. There is so much _light_ coming off of him – Ty Lee would probably gush about his gold aura or something – that she’s almost blinded. But then she’s not, not blinded at all, because she can see perfectly how one of his hands is taking one of _hers_ , pale strong fingers lacing between dark ones. And despite the strange, old taste in her mouth, Mai can’t quite bring herself to feel as nauseated by the sight as she would like to.

Which brings her to a rather startling epiphany – Mai has become rather proficient at losing.

Losing her father’s affections the moment Tom-Tom was placed into his arms, losing her mother’s assurance when she pursued her knives rather than embroidery or music like the other noblemen’s daughters. She lost her friend to the greed of the Fire Nation, and she lost the boy she loved when he became the man their country needed to save them all.

She’s not necessarily _new_ to losing, then, it’s just that before she’s been rather…bad at it. Not in the way Azula was, by setting fire to all the trees in the garden if she felt like it (hence why the Princess always won hide-and-seek), but in the way where she pretends that she never wanted to win in the first place. It makes the winner seem like less of a winner, that way.

But this time…this time she can’t pretend. Zuko is her slightly-less-dingy spot in a world full of grays and bleak, empty horizons, her answer to _what if you ever get out of prison_ and _what if you survive the war_ and _what if somehow everything miraculously turns out okay and you get another chance at a life that’s actually decent and happy_.

She stifles a snort. _Happy_.

It’s a ridiculous concept for fools, fools who’ve had their heads buried in the sand for the past century. As if anyone could look at this world, littered with scorch marks and bloodstains, tumbling down in ruins everywhere she turns, and actually be happy.

Her throat aches when she peeks through the door again and sees the waterbender in his arms, one of his hands softly running through the ends of her hair.

Mai’s not afraid. She can be honest. And honestly, there’s a part of her that wants to pin that waterbender’s blue tunic to the opposite wall with a well-aimed senbon. But it’s not a very big part, certainly not as big as Mai herself would have expected it to be, and it makes her wonder just what that heart-of-hearts of hers was thinking that day at the Boiling Rock.

“You try and interrupt them, and I’ll earthbend you right outta that window.”

Mai rolls her eyes – and then asks herself what was even the point. “Shouldn’t you be greeting the Earth Kingdom dignitaries?”

Toph snorts. “I’m the greatest earthbender in the world. I don’t do politics.”

“You and me both,” Mai mutters, and folds her hands inside her sleeves. “I’m not going to stop them, since you so kindly asked.”

“Good. Sparky and Sweetness have been putting this off long enough as it is, and I’m already working overtime to keep Twinkletoes away. So you keep your uppity nose out of it. Got it?”

For the first time in, well, _ever_ , Mai wants to laugh. But she doesn’t. “Nicknames are childish.”

“I’m twelve,” Toph shrugs. “And don’t tell me what to do, Gloomy.”

“You actually call me Gloomy.”

“Yours is a work in progress,” she amends. “Zuko didn’t like it very much. Said it didn’t fit you anymore.”

Mai blinks. “He’s right.”

(He really is, and that surprises Mai most of all.)

Toph turns to face her. “Yeah,” she says with a smile, a smile that Mai is surprised to see isn’t full of bitterness or distrust, but rather of camaraderie. “He’s right about a lot of things, you know.”

“I know.”

“Like, if he thinks Katara is best for him and makes him happy then he knows – “

“Would you please drop it? I’m not going to do anything. I hate love triangles.”

Toph tilts her head like she’s listening to something. “Good.”

The two of them move outside to one of the larger public gardens, Mai because at some point she does want to talk to Zuko, to at least tell him she’s alive and back in Caldera, but she has no desire to eavesdrop from around the corner. Toph, because….well. Because she’s Toph and apparently Mai is woefully behind the times if she thinks that a twelve year old is going to do anything she doesn’t want to, even if that means welcoming foreign diplomats on behalf of the new Fire Lord.

A friend like her would have been useful, growing up as a nobleman’s daughter. There wouldn’t have been a single boring day, even in Omashu. Though perhaps their differing opinions on dirt would have been something of a stumbling block, Mai admits as she surveys the brown smudges on Toph’s knees and the mud caked beneath her fingernails.

“So watcha gonna do now?”

Mai blinks. “What?”

“Y’know, plans. A future. Goals. That kind of thing.”

She forgets again and merely shrugs, then rolls her eyes, this time at herself. “I’m not sure yet. There aren’t many options for a nobleman’s daughter.”

“Bullcrap.”

She bristles at the crass tone. “Excuse me – “

“Listen, Sunshine – “

“ _Do_ _not_ call me that – “

“ – we might be from two different countries, but you walk, talk, sit, and stand basically exactly like my parents always wanted me to. If I had to guess, yours are banking on you marrying the new Fire Lord and securing their position as upstanding, wealthy Fire Nation citizens, who throw stupid dinner parties and never do a single thing to contribute to society.”

Mai hates being surprised. “How did – “

One grubby hand extends toward her. Mai doesn’t take it.

“Hey. Toph Bei Fong. Don’t guess we were ever properly introduced.”

“…Bei Fong. I’ve heard of them. Isn’t your seal a flying – “

“Boar. A golden boar.” The girl’s voice practically dripped with disdain. “I ran away when Aang came through town and said he needed an earthbending teacher.”

Mai pauses. “Weren’t your parents angry?”

“Angry enough to hire two thugs to kidnap me and bring me back home, yeah,” Toph picks a clump of dirt out of her ear. “But I came back, obviously. They don’t call me the greatest earthbender in the world for nothing, y’know.”

She makes a noncommittal noise by way of reply, but there’s something….

“How?”

Toph’s brows quirk behind those ridiculous bangs. “How, what?”

“How did you, just….” Mai spreads her arms. “ _Leave?_ Walk away? Didn’t you miss them?”

Toph’s face gives nothing away, but Mai is left with the impression that she’s caught the younger girl off guard.

“Of course I missed them,” she says quietly. “But I saw my chance, and I took it. It wasn’t easy, but it was pretty simple.”

Nothing this girls says makes any sense, and it irritates Mai so much she starts chewing on her thumbnail, a habit she despises.

Toph sighs. “Look, my life consisted of pretending to be the perfect, frail little princess my parents wanted during the day, and sneaking out at night to be the Earth Rumble champ. It was fun, sure, but there wasn’t a _point_. Suddenly these weirdos show up and it’s like they’re offering me something my parents had always told me I could never have just because my eyes don’t work. I saw my chance to have a life that meant something, and I took it.”

A life that _means_ something.

Huh.

Interesting, she’s never thought of it that way before.

“Not all of us are given that chance.”

“No,” Toph agrees. “But a lot of times people just don’t see it, even though it’s right in front of them.”

Mai gazes across the garden, toward the pond with the turtleducks, but her head jerks back again when Toph sighs again.

“I really think you’d suck at being Fire Lady.”

Mai’s mouth opens and closes a few times before words come out. “Wh – I would not – I know how things work here, I know what needs to be done, I – “

“Exactly. It’s the life your parents have groomed you for, not the life you really want. You’d be miserable and so would the servants and Zuko and then the rest of us would worry ourselves sick over him, making sure he was eating right and not training himself into an early grave because he’d blame himself for your unhappiness – just face it. You’d be, like, the crappiest Fire Lady ever.”

Somehow, the earthbender’s bluntness is refreshing, perhaps because Mai is used to lies and secrets and behind the scenes plots for world domination. This kind of blatant rudeness is exactly what Azula didn’t have the guts – or the courtesy – to give.

“Maybe I would hate it,” she concedes, “But it’s not like _she_ would be any better.”

“Whether or not Katara would totally rock at being Fire Lady – which, by the way, she _so_ _would_ – isn’t really the point, Sunshine.” Toph says, a little sharply.

“Then what _is_ the point?” Mai says, exasperated.

“I already told you – what’s your plan?”

She blinks, and turns to stare out over the turtleduck pond again.

Her plan…it doesn’t involve Zuko. It stings, but she knows it can’t include him, not anymore. He’s long since arrived at the point where he’s willing to sacrifice himself for the world, and Mai doesn’t know if she’ll ever be that kind of hero. She threw her knives into Azula’s back for _him_ , not for their country. And despite what she wants, she knows giving herself to him while he gives himself to the Fire Nation…it just won’t work.

So, to repeat the question: now what?

Her thoughts stumble and trip over themselves, simply because Mai’s never asked herself that question.

Toph huffs. “I hear the Kyoshi Warriors could use an expert in projectiles. Your circus friend is already joining them so they can learn to chi block.”

She hadn’t heard, but Mai’s not surprised. If anyone can be inmates with people who imprisonment is her fault, and emerge as life-long friends, it’s Ty Lee.

“Hm.” Mai turns away from the pond and heads back inside. “I’ll think about it.”

Toph shrugs. “Suit yourself. Me, I’m gonna head down and see if Bosco’s here yet.”

And without another word, she trots away, kicking up dust clods with every step and leaving Mai with the feeling that they’ve come full circle. Zuko’s going to be here, rebuilding and regulating and putting out fires – no pun intended – and whether Mai likes it or not, Katara’s going to be there right beside him. But she’s not angry, and really, she’s much less disappointed than she was standing on the other side of that doorway.

Sure, she saved the jerk who dumped her, only for him to dump her (sort of) again.

But, perhaps, more importantly, she saved herself from a fate like Azula’s.

Despite what she knows is still going on back inside, Mai smiles a little to herself, and makes a mental note to speak to Suki after the ceremony.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Written a while back for a prompt from lariren-shadow on tumblr: Zutara Mai approves
> 
> This may or may not have morphed from “Zutara and Mai approves” to “Background Zutara and Mai-becomes-a-strong-independent-queen-who-don’t-need-no-Fire-Lord-to-have-a-decent-character-arc”.
> 
> I am absolutely not sorry. Like, at all.


End file.
